


Soul-Watching You

by Hollow_Fan_Soul_55



Series: Soul-Watching [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alfred is all-powerful, BAMF Alfred Pennyworth, Bad Parenting, Bruce Wayne Needs a Hug, Bruce Wayne is Batman, Everyone Needs A Hug, Jason Todd is Dead, M/M, Ra's al Ghul is only mentioned, Resurrected Jason Todd, Soulmates, Tim Drake is Robin, Tim drake needs a hug, looking at you Drakes, most characters only mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-26 20:19:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16688284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hollow_Fan_Soul_55/pseuds/Hollow_Fan_Soul_55
Summary: Prompt by ultrasail.tumblr.comIt’s said that if your soulmate dies before you meet them, they become kind of like your Guardian Angel. They want you to live a really long and great life, so they take care of and protect you as a ghost — because their life was so short. And it’s really kinda sad because they wish they could be with you but they can’t, so they wait until you can join them when you’re ready.Lucky for Jason Todd…this theory is true. He gets a second chance at being with his soulmate, and he’s not about to waste it.





	Soul-Watching You

Jason died, he knows that. It’s a simple fact. There’s nothing he can do about it.

Of course, that doesn’t mean it didn’t take him a while to digest it after the whole _dying_ thing — he _was_ only fifteen, after all.

He hadn’t even met his soulmate yet……!!

All because of a stupid, goddamn _mistake!_

It was the mistake that cost him his life at the hands of Joker. He **hates** that stupid clown, hates him so much that when he opened his eyes to a dulled world for the first time and realized he was floating through the air and could go through walls —that he was dead and didn’t just get superpowers— he wanted to hunt the maniac down and **haunt** his _ass._

…But that was all before he met Tim. _His soulmate._ Turns out that theory of your soulmate staying with you is true, huh.

Timothy Drake, the heir to the Drake fortune and company, is a small boy two years younger than Jason had been before he was killed. He was…well, he had been Jason’s neighbor when he was living with Bruce. He was so _close_ and Jason had never known.

He came to realize rather quickly that he hadn’t known _a lot_ of things about his soulmate and neighbors.

He learns these things because of one simple fact. When returning to your soulmate you’re tied to them. And apparently being tied to his soulmate means that he literally _can’t_ leave his side. He’s dragged along by a three-meter tether constantly.

The first few days — _weeks_ — Jason spent his time growling at anything and everything Tim seemed to do, never getting closer than he had to.

Be it go to school and scribble nonsense into a notebook that Jason couldn’t care less about instead of listening, to hunching his shoulders as some of the older kids jostle him in the hall instead of raising his voice and telling them off. The way he walks, small and frail in his fancy clothes to his fancy house that is more well-kept than the manor, as if he’s so goddamn pitiful.

Heck, especially the kid’s weird ‘stare off into nowhere for two hours’ makes Jason’s nonexistent blood _boil_ and he can’t do shit about it.

That’s why he’s surprised when, fifteen days into this bullshit, the kid doesn’t go to bed like he had every other night as if he were a fuckin _robot._ Doesn’t even sit on it and pretend like he had some nights, just slips on a pair of well-worn running shoes followed by a dark hoodie and a camera from the closet.

And then the kid —Tim, his mind oh so helpfully suggests he use— slips out his window despite the house being dead silent and when there is a perfectly good front door. Now that Jason thinks about it, where _are_ the brat’s parents? He hasn’t seen hide nor hair of them and it’s been half a month…

Something doesn’t settle right where Jason’s gut used to be. For the first time since coming back, he’s focusing his full attention on Tim and the world around him. The world just so happens to suddenly be a dark roof top off of Fourth Street, hidden behind a little air conditioning unit.

““ _What are you doing out here?_ ”” he asks loudly, floating casually out in the open without a care of being seen or heard because **newsflash** …no one could. This means Jason has a perfect, undivided view of Tim as he positioned his camera up with his little arms, breathing so shallowly that Jason could barely pick it up, with his body so still that he practically melts into the wall behind him.

It isn’t until Jason’s ears pick up the painfully familiar rustle of fabric that he whips around, watching with wide, watery eyes as Bruce flies by in full Batman mode, not even glancing to the spot where Tim is snapping a photo.

_““What the hell!?””_ Jason says, staring open-mouthed as Tim settles the camera against his chest and takes off without a second thought, darting down the fire escape of one building to bunny-hop onto the two-inch ledge winding around the next as if he’s done this his entire life.

Jason was stumped. _““How did we miss–?””_

But they _had._ Not Bruce, the greatest detective in the world. Not Dick, the golden first son. Not Barbara, who is the most badass girl he’s ever met. And not Jason — who has had street smarts and a good dose of ‘something is watching me’ honed from years in the Narrows. None of them noticed a pint-sized baby elite from the upper crust of Gotham tailing them taking _pictures._

There’s no telling how long Tim’s been doing this if he’s got Batman’s patrol route down pat despite the fact they change it daily to sweep the entire area and not become too predictable. That plan apparently _failed._

That feeling doesn’t make Jason feel good. Tim is only thirteen at this point, and he just…he just……he just watched Bruce pummel a purse-snatcher like he were _Bane._

Tim’s face is creased in a frown, his eyes though, are wide and frightened. “Batman’s going too far,” the boy says, shock and horror filling his tiny, soft voice. Why had Jason not noticed how goddamn _small_ his soulmate is? “Oh my gods, he's going to kill someone!”

Jason stares down in shock as Tim brings out a phone and dials for an ambulance, watching with wide blue eyes as Bruce swings away without calling the take-down in. He’s just…leaving the man behind, broken and beaten and on the brink of death.

The jerk of the tether as Tim scrambles down the ladder isn’t pleasant because Jason doesn’t _want_ to get closer, doesn’t want to see the pillar Bruce has been on crumbling down.

But Tim is going, so Jason is too.

What they find isn’t pleasant.

The man is pretty much unconscious at this point, although he does flinch slightly when Tim rushes up to him, groaning as he shifts his wonkily turned body. His scarred face is molten black and blue, his skin split on his forehead, his lip is split, and his nose is definitely broken and spewing blood. His arm looks broken in several places too, and that’s not even accounting for whatever mess of hurt is under his clothes.

Tim kneels down right beside his head without a care for the grime and dirt, tiny pale hands fluttering against the man’s neck, pushing under the rumpled collar. “It’s going to be okay, sir. I called the paramedics. They’re on their way, just hold on. Can you do that?”

Jason’s almost surprised Tim’s voice isn’t shaking. He’s heard the boy speak for a while now and he’s always had this wobble to it — except for when he talks to adults in dirty back allies after watching them get the pulp beat out of them, it seems.

…Not that Jason’s actually heard him speak to an adult beside his teacher twice, which is saying something.

“Sir, can I have your name to give to the paramedic when they arrive?” Tim asks. Maybe it’s a combination of a concussion, the situation, and Tim’s young voice that has the man responding with the name Derik Fletcher — because Jason’s not sure what else could’ve compelled the man to give his real name to a strange Gothamite.

Jason just drifts along after that, eyes peeled each night as Tim ventures out, growing more and more worried as time passes before one day, he marches up to his room with a determination that scares Jason as he starts typing on his computer. The general gist Jason gets is something he both fully supports and loathes with all his spirit.

“Batman needs a Robin, Mister Wayne,” Tim says sternly, head high in the face of Bruce’s shock. To the untrained eye, he would just look _pissed_. Tim, the blessedly, stubbornly stupid boy with no self-preservation to speak of, doesn’t back down in face of The Loom.

Not even in the face of Alfie’s patented British butler composure does Tim show the panic and nerves he had packed away inside his room after painstakingly searching through _countless scrapbooks of photos_ hidden under a board beneath his bed.

Jason is absolutely terrified each and every time Tim manages to sneak into places he shouldn’t be to make another proposal that is shot down. When that seems to be getting him nowhere, Tim goes to Bludhaven to find Dick and ask _him_ to be Robin again — which why, just _why?_ Dick is already Nightwing, he’s already flown the coop!

But his soulmate somehow manages to once again not only help solve the mystery at Haly’s Circus but on top of that, convinces Dick to come back and at least _help_ Bruce out a bit.

Only for the idiots to argue the entire time and manage to get pinned down by Two-Face and gunfire. Tim then, against the odds, gets Alfie to help him into Jason’s old suit —which hangs off Tim’s frame— and the boy goes to save their asses.

This is a judgment call for Alfie, though he can’t blame the man. Alfie has to deal with Bruce and Dick, and now Tim, on top of Babs being out of commission with her dad that night. There just weren’t enough options.

So of course, the best option was the send a thirteen-year-old boy with no training other than a Ph.D. in Stalker after them. Jason is screaming and having a heart attack the entire fight, but Tim — the amazingly talented and freakishly smart baby bird he is, saves them.

Not that Bruce thanks Tim even _once_. All Bruce does is berate Tim on entering the fight — _shove it,_ B!— and Dick is beyond useless when he’s sulking and scowling at Bruce from the parallel bars.

But Bruce does eventually cave.

Jason laughs at the constipated grimace on his face when he admits defeat, and then Jason spends the next year following Tim around like a useless bum as he speed-trains with the likes of Lady Shiva — where he learns hand-to-hand and how to use various weapons, amongst his favorite being the bo staff. Jason nearly dies again when Tim learns for several other master combatants and yet is _still_ a small bean sprout.

Jason can’t fault him for that. Not everyone can be built like Bruce or Dick, —Jason too, but he was still awkwardly growing so who knows how he would have ended up— and Jason’s seen him take down a group of well-trained ninja that are three times his weight and twice his height with only his bo staff and his brain.

And hell if Jason isn’t proud of his little bird. Jason’s watched his high and lows, seen him stare down a Batglare, lie to Bruce —because people can do that, apparently!? If Jason wasn’t so sure Tim was a normal ass human he’d bet that was his power— and talk tech with Babs, chatter with Alfie, _and_ —despite the burning in his chest, even if he hadn’t known Dick had been fired or was off-planet when he died, that doesn’t mean the older man had to treat him like shit— have an actual brotherly relationship with Dick.

His little bird doesn’t even fall off the rails when Janet is killed by Obeah Man in the Caribbean and Jack is put in a coma. Jason knows Tim is sad, but they hadn’t been parents enough for Tim to bond with or really feel wreaked when they were gone for good. Tim just moves into the manor and settles in.

Jason also settles into his role as Tim’s little protector, getting a handle on his capabilities now so he can nudge him out of the way of bullets or knock into a perp to make them lose their balance _just so._ It’s routine for years………which is why Jason’s surprised when he’s yanked violently off center as the world around him blurs and crashes into each other.

He thrashes, the lungs he shouldn’t have are _burning_ as he drags his arms through the no longer dull shade of color the world had become all those years ago. The liquid is acidic green and has become his entire world.

He **screams** as he breaches the water, coughing violently as he struggles away from the arms grabbing at him and fighting the fog crashing down on his head.

_Where the fuck am I!? Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!!!_

He snaps at the nearest black blob, pouncing and tearing into them before leaping to the next that gets too close. Something inside him is cracked and broken and _empty._ He can’t find something! Something is **missing** and it’s **important**!! He needs to find _Tim–_

The world shutters back into focus, the fog recedes as his eyes zero in on the unconscious ninja assassin person under him, scrambling off as he looks around sharply. He’s in some weird underground cave, the green pool of liquid behind him casting the whole place in an eerie glow that sets his skin all tingly.

And yet…the woman standing regally a few paces away looks like she was born for this color, her copper skin covered in rich green and gold silks with a sword strapped to her hip. “Hello Jason, I am Talia al Ghul.”

She says this in a chipped voice, green eyes roving over him… and he is _naked._

He eyes the ninja he just beat and pulls the stupid excess cloth off him to wrap it around his waist, scowling at the lady with a blush on his cheeks.

The blush fades quickly as he takes stock of what he remembers Bruce warning him about the al Ghuls — how the head of this assassin organization is Ra’s and that the family is very, very bad news.

This doesn’t stop him from talking, though. Nothing ever really has, plus three years as a ghost probably obliterated most of his filter. “What the _hell_ am I doing here!?” _Living,_ is left unsaid because that’s just a stupid thing to ask out loud.

Talia raises an eyebrow, almost looking shocked that he has his own thoughts and could speak. **Bitch**.

“Hm, I haven’t seen a person come out of the Lazarus pit and gain their mind back so quickly. Maybe Bruce had the right idea with you, after all.”

…Well now that just hurts.

“Thanks, I’d like to think so, since he adopted me and all.”

The woman smirks, motioning with her hand for him to follow as she turns on her heel. “Come, I think you’ll wish to see how much Bruce truly cares for you.”

She shows him pictures of Tim dressed in the new and improved Robin suit and Jason is hit with a whole new sense of _holy **Jesus** , why didn’t we all just wear **pants**??_ that he couldn’t properly experience as a ghost. The things you appreciate when you’re alive, he guesses.

The picture is of Tim swinging behind B with a smile on his face because it was his first real night out. There’s one of Bruce with his arm around Tim’s shoulder — leading Tim away from work because his soulmate has no concept of mortal limits. Barbara and Tim leaning over the computer like nerds, and Tim eating donuts with the spitfire girl Stephanie.

There’s even one of Alfie smiling softly as he served Tim some tea after Jack made Tim give up Robin to Stephanie who, at the time, had still been going around in a crappily made suit and no training.

After Jack finally kicked the bucket, Tim got Robin back and Stephanie went on to be Batgirl because Bruce is an emotionally stunted asshole with less capacity for them than a cinder wall. In other words, Bruce was a bitch to Stephanie and she was out-of-there as soon as she could to get some proper mentorship from Babs.

So Jason just laughs loudly in this al Ghul’s face. She looks taken aback by his response.

He already knows **exactly** how bad Bruce got because he was grieving, he already **knows** Dick is back at the manor, and above all…he knows Tim is Robin. Was she expecting anger? If he hadn’t been Tim’s soulmate, maybe he would have been — maybe the tugging heat at the back of his head wouldn’t be so out of touch.

Sadly for her, he’s been with his family almost since the day he died. “Suck it up, lady,” he calls to her, ignoring the shocked faces as he walks out of the compound cackling and straight to the nearest police station. The lady had the gall to bring him to Europhia, so getting onto a plane is surprisingly easy when he plays the _I’ve been kidnapped for the past three years, I need to get home_ card.

It works like a charm, he’s gotta admit. He even manages to make it back home before the local news station in Europhia makes _national news_ as Bruce Wayne’s son returns for the dead.

………… _Now all he has to do is knock on the fucking door and it will all be over with!_

He glares at it as if it’s personally wronged him —it has, he’s walked straight through this door too many times to count— before giving up and pounding on it with a fist.

He waits a solid minute —much too long for Alfie to be at home— before there’s a feeling pulling at his heart. It’s not the burning of anger or the stab of fear for Tim that he’s experienced before. It’s something soft and new.

The soft steps that had been coming down the hall quicken right before the doors are flung open dramatically in time for Jason to meet crystalline blue eyes on a thinner face, one that has black hair falling in his eyes from leaning over his computer.

Sixteen-year-old Tim Drake gapes at him, face draining of color.

“You–! You’re–?” Tim’s mouth flaps as he tries to find the words, his brain short-circuiting. Jason just smiles, pulling Tim into a hug that the boy tenses up for. Jason’s head rests on Tim’s shoulder even though he has to bend to reach it.

“I’m home, baby bird.” He whispers softly.

Something clicks into place within him. The first real conversation with his soulmate. Tim relaxes almost instantly, his too-light-weight sagging against Jason’s broader-than-in-ghost-form body, strong but thin arms wrapping around his torso with a vice grip that says Tim isn’t letting go any time soon.

“And I’m never leaving you again.”

**_That_ was a promise.**


End file.
